This study amis to explore the relative contributions of parental cognitive-explanatory variables in accounting for the involvement of low-income African-American parents in their adolescents' lives. Although drug abuse in the adolescent population has conitinued its rise in the last decade, researches have shown that parental involvement in the lives of their adolescents can reduce their risk of substance abuse. Strong evidence sugguests that the degree of involvement parents have in their children's social adn academic lives covaries with parents' sense of competency, locus of control, and expectations regarding child development. Still unclear, however, is how much parental involvement can be accounted for by these cognitive factors. Specifically, this study will survey and describe parental involvement activities and their frequency in families with adolescents living in a low-income African-American community. Parental cognitive-explanatory variables regarding their children and the effectiveness of their parenting skills will also be examined for content, frequency, and duration. Next, the investigator will determine if independent relationships between the cognitive-explanatory variablesof sense of competency, locus of control, expectatified. Finally, this study will explore whether African- American parents' cognitions concerning their parenting and their children's behaviors can account for some of the variation in parents' involvement in their children's academic and social activities.